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I think we have a special message to bring to this new
conversation, and that is a can-do message, that we are uniquely capable of
bringing. From: owner-p2tech@great-lakes.net [mailto:owner-p2tech@great-lakes.net] On Behalf Of Fred Granek Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 9:31 AM To: p2tech@great-lakes.net Cc: lbarnes@wmrc.uiuc.edu Subject: RE: Idle musings: Has the P2 community missed the bandwagon? Or get run over by it? Scott I agree; in my
view P2 thinking and methods should be integral to the issue of climate change,
since as we all know, air issues are not just limited to global warming, but are
also more immediate in terms of smog or toxics. We are really talking about what
appears on the death certificate as cause of death, and our job is to eliminate
the underlying causes not just developing piecemeal solutions.
When dealing with
municipalities or regions rather than industrial establishments, we are just
moving the boundary further out, and looking at the use of additional tools in
the tool kit (transit policy, building permits, planning, settlement limits,
etc) than the traditional P2 ones. It isn’t a question of
being irrelevant, it is a matter of allowing ourselves to be marginalized. One
off solutions don’t work, never have, never will. Now more than ever we need the
questioning, non-linear thinking of P2
practitioners. We need to put
ourselves back into the equation, to be at the centre of the cyclone, instead of
being blown away. Because at the end of
the day, the issue driven mindset will not solve the problem. And we must solve
it. Fred
Granek Please
consider the environment before printing this e-mail From:
owner-p2tech@great-lakes.net [mailto:owner-p2tech@great-lakes.net] On Behalf Of Butner, R Scott P2TECH-ies --
Some random musings to ponder over
the upcoming Thanksgiving break. If the tryptophan doesn't put you to
sleep, you can always resort to this. As
it happens, I had the opportunity to attend the American Now, if you've never been to an
AIChE meeting, imagine some 3,000 chemical engineering graduate students, their
professors, and another 1,000 or so industry people all converging on one place
for a week. Sounds like a riotous affair,
doesn't it? Mix in And
in fact, it was quite a good meeting. Turns out that Salt Not
that I had time, of course -- the conference boasted some 660 technical
sessions, approximately 3,000 or so presented papers, distributed across the 18
technical divisions and forums of AIChE, including 16 topical subconferences on
topics including: -
New Frontiers in Energy Research Incidentally, the whole technical
agenda -- which includes a lot of sessions of interest to P2 people -- can be
found here: http://www.aiche.org/Conferences/Past/Annual07CompleteProgram.aspx What's this got to do with
P2TECH? Wait a minute. I'll get there
-- I'm just taking the scenic route* So,
anyway, a few days after returning to the office, I got a call from my good
friend Jean Waters (of P2Rx fame). Jean was, as is her habit, driving at
high speeds across the wide-open An
exact transcript follows. Well, OK, "exact" may be a tiny bit of an
overstatement -- just as "complete fabrication" isn't entirely accurate either
-- but I think I captured the essence of it. "Butner! Why didn't you TELL
me you were in "um.....because you didn't ask?"
(for the record, I rarely coordinate
my travel schedule with Jean anymore) "doesn't matter. I was there
too. We should have gotten together for lunch. We need to talk."
And
so we did. We talked briefly about business (kinda slow), our kids (it's
generally accepted -- by us -- that both of us have exceptionally clever kids),
and the state of P2 (the term "moribund" may have been tossed about -- but I
won't tell you which of us suggested it). I
don't think we ever got around to discussing the meaning of life, but that's
just as well, as you hate to introduce that topic to someone stuck in a car
doing 80 mph through the Or
NOT be, as it happens. Anyway, somewhere in this
discussion, I mentioned that I was encouraged by the presence of literally
hundreds of shiny new graduate students -- all there in their spiffy interview
suits, young and bright and full of enthusiasm -- who had come to the conference
to talk about subjects that were near and dear to all of us: Environmental
lifecycle analysis. Green chemistry. Selective solvents.
Environmental applications of nanotechnology. Sustainable
biorefineries. Climate Change. Sustainable Water
Management. All
of this is stuff that built upon the intellectual and technical foundation laid
by P2. Yet it all seems to be moving ahead without the P2 community in
some ways. Now
I chalk some of this up to creative repackaging -- tack the word "sustainable"
on to a session title, and you can continue to talk about the same old....
er, stuff -- that you've always talked about, and yet still seem
contemporary. It's a fact.
But
a lot of what was being presented would have been right at home at an NPPR
meeting (remember those?) ten years ago. Or
more. I
mentioned this to Jean. She started to respond, then abruptly
blurted out "wait just a sec...." In
the background, I heard tires screeching as she swerved to avoid hitting a pig
that had walked onto the freeway -- an event so commonplace in Nebraska that
native Nebraskans will mock you if you slow down even a bit. Instead, the
accepted practice is to swerve out into the cornfield (because the laws of
probability state with near certainty that if you're driving across Nebraska,
you'll be adjacent to a corn field), dodge the center pivot sprinkler, then
swerve back out onto the highway, spraying gravel from the wheels of your pickup
as you hit the pavement. On those rare occasions when the road actually IS
paved, that is. "Try that again and you're going
home as bacon!" I heard her say, away from the phone.
I
was pretty sure she was talking to the pig, not to me.
"OK, now where were we?" she asked
rhetorically. "Oh yeah -- all these upstarts coming into P2."
"The problem, as I see it," she
began, " is that we were successful beyond our wildest dreams. The
environment is becoming mainstream, just like we
wanted" I
sensed a "but...." about to intrude into the conversation. "But-ing in,"
if you will. "But, the thing is -- will the
bandwagon stop to pick us up, or will it roll us over?"
Good question, Jean. They grow
up smart out there in the midwest. Smart, and tough.
And
smelling faintly of cows. Anyway. Let's take stock for a
moment: -
Everyone and their brother (unless the brother is named "Jeb") seems to be
interested in the environment these days.
-
Companies are increasingly touting "green" products, and people are, in
increasing numbers, buying those green products - Al Gore won the freakin'
Nobel Peace prize, for insistently and persistently stating the obvious.
Heck, there's even a movie that hit
the theatres this weekend, called -- what else? -- "P2"
Without wanting to be a spoiler,
here's a hint: it's not what you might hope. Seems that "P2" can mean
things OTHER than "pollution prevention" --
whodathunkit? But
that one exception notwithstanding, it seems like the P2 community -- which
after all, has been ahead of this curve for years, right? -- should be at it's
peak of influence. Sitting in the catbird seat.
Calling the shots.
Leader of the pack.
Driving the bandwagon.
(coming up with better cliches)
But
I don’t get the sense that we are. Has
the P2 community moved on? Tired out? Outlived it's
usefulness? Accomplished it's goals? Morphed into these other
things? Does it matter?
I
don't know the answers to these questions. Just musing out loud at the
provocation of a good friend. Anyone else wondering along these
lines recently? Regards,
Scott -----------------
I
could provide you with some b.s. rationale, but mostly it was an excuse to spend
17 hours each way with no company other than myself and the extensive collection
of Elvis Costello songs I have loaded onto my iPod.
The
fact that I think that is something to look forward to explains quite a bit,
actually. In
any event, my pictures of the road trip can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rs_butner/sets/72157603110709460/show/
As
you'll see, I managed to make some stops along the way to stand in a river or
two. As
is my habit. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Be
sure to find SOMETHING to be thankful for. |